An off-duty New Jersey police officer and his son, both New York Rangers fans, were beaten Monday outside Philadelphia cheesesteak shop Geno's by a group of men wearing Philadelphia Flyers jerseys. The incident was caught on video and posted by police, who were looking for three unidentified men, all wearing Flyers jerseys, who started, then escalated, then restarted the brawl.

The brawl ended with the Rangers fans lying nearly motionless on the ground. One of them had been sucker-punched in the back of the head.

Two days later, Edward Neary said he was one of the guys police were looking for—via the Facebook page of SB Nation's Flyers blog Broad Street Hockey, which was actively attempting to find whoever was responsible and help the police investigation.

Neary, a 2009 high school graduate, commented on a post of the video: "it was me and my friends, do something about it," then used a homophobic slur. After another commenter noted that Neary's name and face were obviously visible, Neary wrote "how dumb do I look knocking someone out pretty sure they look dumb eatin concrete".

Neary then backed off his initial statement and blamed three of his friends: Steven Michael Mugga, John Baranosky and Steven Michael McCloskey. Neary characterized McCloskey as "the one who started it."

After that, according to Broad Street Hockey, Neary changed his Facebook picture and deleted his account.

"He took a severe beating," township spokesman John Hagerty said, adding that the officer was taken to a hospital, where he required stitches to close wounds. He said the second victim was the officer's son. Hagerty refused to release the name of the officer.